As part of the investigator's long term goal of describing and analyzing processes that characterize efficient human learning, the proposed research involves a detailed examination of the factors related to the role of cognitive and linguistic activities in children's learning. Three major parts of the proposal may be distinguished: research on linguistic comprehension and production, learning and cognitive processes and subject characteristics. Using current psycholinguistic theory and sociolinguistic notions, major attention is given to the role of language in the facilitation of noun pair learning and the manipulation of linguistic factors presumed to be responsible for observed variations in the amount of facilitation produced in learning. Both, mode of stimulus presentation (i.e., visual, verbal, visual and verbal), and response mode will be manipulated. In addition, the aim is to determine the effect of verbal and non-verbal mediators generated by subjects and those provided by experimenters. The second purpose is to determine the effect of various cognitive strategies on the facilitation and/or interference of performance. The third area of concern is, an examination of subject characteristics, (i.e., age, ethnic/socio-economic status) as reflected in linguistic structures and cognitive strategies. Previous research by the investigator has shown that under certain conditions low-SES Black children do not learn as efficiently as high-SES White children, whereas under other conditions they do. One major hypothesis asserts that these factors are to be found in the linguistic-cognitive demands of the task.